The MakeMeThinner Support Forum

[nickieluv]

I know - I just have to do it. I don't know why I'm so dense, especially since I've been through this before, but I keep waiting and hoping for it to be easy. I seem to think there will be some magical day when I will stick to plan effortlessly and then I'll just know it's meant to be and I'll sail to goal.

It's going to be work. I have to make myself do it. Like medicine or whatever. Have some damn discipline. Not be so whiny. Not keep enabling myself to buy and eat wrong foods - and even if I weren't on a diet, these are not foods I need to eat.

Maybe I'm punishing myself for something. Feeling that I don't deserve to succeed. But a great deal of it is impatience. I want to be thin now. After three days on plan, or heavens, a week! - I should be thin and gorgeous for all that hard work. I've exercised 8 times - I should be a power lifter and body builder with a 6-pack by now. I'm such a child. I want to smack myself a lot lately. I'm just being self-defeatist (is that a word?) and lazy.

I am a pain in my own a**. I can't get out of my own way. Sure I'll figure it out - but can I afford to keep waiting? Nope.

Then I wish I could spare all of you, stop posting until I've made some progress, because if you could I bet at least four or five people would reach through my screen and slap me daily. I'm being a little selfish whiny baby. It's annoying.

So I'm just going to try to not come here. I'll read but I won't post. I know I don't have to do that - but I'm not making any great realizations or being especially helpful, I'm just recycling all my old lines and problems over and over again. I need to stop talking anyway. I am totally BL Joelle. Stupid little speeches, trying to make what I'm doing look good when really I'm just not making any changes at all. If Jillian could actually see the way I work out to her DVD she'd scream at me I bet. I'm tired of feeling stupid and weak and worthless. I suppose this sounds like a pity party and maybe it is. But maybe I need to hit rock bottom to change.

[nickieluv]

Why won't you let me disappear you big meanie?

Mega-cheats, by the way. Eat nothing all day long and then go into a stupor cheats. All I deserve is to be a fat ugly b**** cheats. I have problems with moderation. Well, that's a bit of an understatement.

Now I'm trying to tell myself that it wasn't really my fault because I was contending with PMS. What a handy excuse.

I have regrets. All the breastfeeding issues with my baby needed to be worked out, but the fact that I had two really good weeks and was down to 221 before having to totally switch gears and go off-plan has been weighing on my mind lately. Looking back, knowing that all my efforts didn't amount to anything with the breastfeeding, I wish I had just let it go and kept on the plan. The good old 'where I could be now if only' kind of thinking. It's not been helpful to think those thoughts.

I don't like what I'm doing. I need to clean the junk out of my brain and just start fresh, do the right things, stop worrying about all this tangential stuff from the past or in the future.

OK, so I posted. I'm not at all happy with where I am and I know there aren't any easy answers. I have to be prepared for hard work. I'm doing OK with the workouts because I do that once in the day and then it's over. The diet I have to do all day long with no breaks. I certainly can do it, I'm just not. It's not important enough to me right now - I guess some sick part of me is enjoying being miserable. I'm coming into a very stressful time of the year, I'm going to be away from home a lot more at rehearsals, I got really used to having my husband home over Christmas break and now he's back at work - I'm just pouting I suppose, and doing it through food. Back to thinking food is my only friend maybe.

Wasting time. I want to stop but it seems not badly enough yet. Tomorrow my husband will be home. I can have a full two days with his support. And I need to take advantage of Katie's offer to call, and Tawanda's offer to pm. I have support being given to me, I'm just not taking it. Trying to do it all on my own, so typical.

OK, sorry about yet another whine-fest. It's all circular and keeps coming back to the fact that there is no easy way. Damn.

[nickieluv]

I just watched a show that has nothing to do with weight loss but inspired me nonetheless. Anybody seen "What Not To Wear?" Well tonight's episode was this stunning 23-year-old. And watching her transformation I felt not the slightest bit of jealousy. Because what I would have envied is not her size or age, but her confidence. She was completely at home in her body (which was perfect, of course, but still). I can't be 23 again, I won't ever have a tall model's body like she did, but I could have that confidence. It's within my grasp.

I am young. I may be a mom of two but I'm only 30. My adulthood has only just begun. I've only been teaching for 8 years - my career has only just begun. I am forever thinking about how my kids will turn out, how my finances will turn out, planning for future events and thinking that THEN I will really be happy, THEN I will really start to live. What on earth am I waiting for?

I can be happy NOW. I don't have to be thin. I don't have to wait to have money or beautiful clothes or the perfect house. I can embrace all my blessings right this minute. I talk about wasting my time by not sticking to the diet - but I'm wasting my life in a lot of other little ways, too.

I remember having a similar revelation before. The first time I was finally successful. I'm not sure how I lost this point of view, except to say that life itself happens and wears you down and can make you complacent if you're not careful.

I don't have to be perfect to be happy. I can be happy now, flawed as I am. And I can try to make myself better. Try to make choices that will help me live life more fully NOW, not in some distant and seemingly unattainable future fantasy.

Hold on to this feeling. That's my advice to myself from now on.

[nickieluv]

Do you know how many times my restart date has changed? I'm just keeping it at 1/1 for simplicity's sake. Sheesh.

Did OK on Saturday but had a little cheat in the evening. Felt OK about keeping on but then Sunday hubby and I totally killed each other. It's great dieting with your spouse when you are both on the same page as far as eating right - or when just one of you is feeling weak, the other can prop you up - but when you're both feeling lazy and give in, it's a disaster. Especially when you let me go get the food. Yuck.

On the positive side (depending on how you look at it, I guess) I can see that I'm not alone. There are several people who come back every now and again and say that 'this time' they are 'really going to do it' and it will be 'the last restart.' Some of them even lost a lot of weight before but didn't quite make it all the way to goal. So I know that I'm not an exceptionally weak-willed individual or anything. I just am having a hard time doing something that is very hard to do. I'm normal.

Not that that's a very fun thought. I'd like to be abnormal if it meant I was having an easy time right now.

I know that when I've gotten on track and lost a few pounds, I will look back and it will seem like it was easy. That's how it felt last time, after I finally got going. The mind tends to erase bad stuff sometimes. And I wasn't even close to perfect last time. I have the data to prove it. But I kept going, I kept getting closer to goal, because I didn't give up and I didn't wallow in food for days and days on end.

I have to let go of the idea that I have to be perfect. But I have to truly understand that a slip-up is defined in terms of an hour or a meal, not a week or a month. I didn't lose weight last time because I was perfect and the planets were all aligned and I had the perfect system and it was effortless or any other dumb excuse. I lost weight because I didn't give up and I didn't allow myself to stop until I had reached my mental goal of getting under 200. Of course then all hell broke loose, and I can learn from that definitely.

I'm getting up in the morning to work out. Not looking forward to it on the one hand because we are moving up to the harder workout - but I was getting kind of bored with the other one and I am looking forward to finding out how much I can do in this new one. It looks scary though. Not sure I want to know what the 3rd level looks like! But I will take measurements in the morning. I'm not going to check them or track them regularly, but I just thought that might be another thing to look at when I'm feeling like I'm making no progress.

Of course, I'm really not making any progress right now - or, I'm progressing in the wrong direction. But I have the power to put all this behind me and start on the path that I know works. I can choose. It doesn't matter that I'm home with the kids, that I have an odd schedule in the evenings, blah blah blah. I can make this work through anything, whether my husband is on the diet or not, whether I'm home or working, whether I'm tired and depressed or energetic and happy. I make the choices for my own body and I can decide what I want and how to get there.

[nickieluv]

So we exercised this morning - yep, it kicked my butt. I was thinking after Sunday, the last time I did workout #1, that it was still pretty challenging but I was ready for some more ab stuff. Well, #2 is almost ALL abs in one way or another - it's more about balance which is a laugh with me, and there's all this stuff in plank pose while you work your legs and I can't hold myself up for more than 5 seconds. So I should not have wished for more ab work!

I'm on my second glass of water already. I've found that's another symptom for me - when I'm not getting my water, I'm more apt to give up halfway through the day. I'm not sure if that's because I get hungry, or because not drinking my water gets me out of the MF mindset - which makes me more apt to have a diet soda, which makes me more apt to cheat, on and on.

Took my measurments this morning - really sad. I don't feel I look so big, sometimes, but when you consider that my thigh measurement is now what my WAIST used to be in college, that's pretty upsetting. And I thought I was fat. Moron.

Anybody wonder what you'll think you look like when you're thin? Not what you think now you'll look like eventually, but what your body image will be when you are at your goal weight. Will I still think I'm fat? Will I think I'm too thin because I've spent so many years looking at a fat body? Will I even get there, or will I stop again around 195 because it seems like I've reached my goal at that point? Just curious - I'm not thinking about it a lot or anything. I wonder, Robin and Lauren, if you see a thin person in the mirror and embrace her, or if you're always seeing flaws that need fixing. And I wonder if part of that is just based on your personality to begin with, like whether you're usually a happy or a critical person.

Well, I'm going to get a supplement. Out of bars, so I'm not sure what it'll be. Something liquid this morning, for certain.

I'm glad to be on the horse again. I can do this. I feel pretty positive today. Instead of dwelling on where I am now - even with the workout - I'm looking ahead to the day when I can complete those plank poses without modifying it, to the day when I can have a thigh measurement that matches my current arm measurement. It will happen. I can do it if I keep eating right and exercising. It's all up to me.

[DogMa]

Flaws. I always still see the flaws. My self-image has improved somewhat, but I think part of it is just my personality. I've had self-image problems ever since I can remember, so I think it's probably unreasonable to expect them to disappear in just a couple of years.

[Susie Q]

Hi, Nicki! Thanks for stopping by my journal. It's nice to 'meet' ya !

You sound 'right on' in your post from this morning. I hope you made it through the day on plan!! You have the right idea - - stick with it! You can do it!

Regarding 'feeling thin' - - I hope so. My 'real' goal isn't a number on the scale it is feeling good naked - LOL. I fear that is mental though so I hope I don't have troubles . Although I wasn't perfect, I wasn't 100% at goal and I needed to tone, I did feel much better naked before life happened and I gained back some weight. So I am hopeful......

I hope you sailed through your compliant day!

Susie

[nickieluv]

Made it.

Had about 2 ounces of lean meat mid-morning, plus MF crackers, so technically I was not perfect. But it's sure as h*** good enough for me right now.

Looking forward to working out tomorrow. Kind of eager for it, actually. That's quite bizarre in my world. I want to see if I can do more than I did today. What's up with that? *So* not my usual frame of mind.

I feel a corner has been turned. I don't have to be perfect, I just have to do something. And I'm doing something, finally.

I feel the way I feel when I'm in it for the long haul. Staying on was not a struggle, I wasn't tortured by thoughts of food. Sure I got hungry, but it was no big deal and I just had the extra meat and called it good. That's my MO now - no cheating on carbs, just extra meat if I feel really hungry. Of course I'm aiming to not need any extra, but if I do, I will, and not feel guilty, and move on.

Can't wait to exercise tomorrow!

Holy sh*t. Is this ME talking or have I been possessed?

[nickieluv]

Well I will say that working out didn't sound like as much fun at 5 in the morning as it did at 10 the night before. But I did it. I'm not sure if I did more or not. Sometimes it's hard for me to judge. I'm sure I'll see more of a difference next week. My husband said I did a lot better the first time on workout 2 than I did the first time on workout 1. So there are definitely changes happening, I'm getting stronger. No six pack for me just yet but if I can keep this up, I hope the body that is revealed as the fat goes away is a decent one and not too flabby.

Off to have a supplement and then a shower and hopefully back to sleep. It doesn't always work out that way, depending on when the kids wake up, but I can usually at least lay down for a little bit and rest.

[Susie Q]

Hey, congrats on making it through yesterday!! Sounds like you did a geat job!! That feels awesome, doesn't it?

A work out at 5 AM?!? I'm NOT a morning person, I couldn't get up at that time of day, much less move so good for you!! What kind of work outs are you doing?

I hope today is another on plan day for ya!

Susie

[nickieluv]

So I'm getting sad that there aren't more people here today. I know it's been this way for a while, but when I wasn't really following the plan I didn't come here as often so I didn't notice as much. Now I check in four or five times a day and most of the time there are no new posts.

I changed my ticker. I was hunting around on the other medifast site and saw that someone had a ticker going just for the current month. I thought that was a cool idea, because then you look like you're closer to goal, and it goes along with my need to have realistic goals that I can attain sooner. So my ticker now has a goal of 230, which I hope to reach by Disney in 3 weeks.

Well, that's all. Another good day - extra protein but no snack this time. Probably 2 ounces of meat. Got my Momentum products today - I know you have to limit it to 3, but should I use them all the time or switch on and off one week to the next, or every other day or something? I don't want my body to become accustomed to all that caffeine and have it start losing its effectiveness. What do you guys think?

[nickieluv]

Hey Susie, hope you're having a good trip! (In case you can check in from where you are.) I wrote a bit about exercise in your journal yesterday. If your hotel has a gym maybe that could be an outlet for you if you're feeling tempted?

Leigh, I hope you and Shane had a good discussion. My husband and I talked last night, too - he wanted to tell me how much he loves MF and he thinks he will always want it in the cupboards. This from the man who swore up and down he could never do such a restrictive diet because he loves to eat too much. I'm so glad he tried it.

Down 5 pounds today, still above ticker but moving in the right direction. Going to be a long day so no L&G today. Day 3 but I'll be busy so it should be fine. I could always have L&G for lunch if I really need it.

Workout was fine today. I'm curious. Suddenly (as of Tuesday) I can do jumping jacks, when before I could move EITHER my arms or legs but not both, because it killed my back. Mystery. Also, I know I'm working hard and pushing myself, but it seems to go faster than the first level workout, and I don't feel as tired afterwards. Am I doing something wrong or is this normal? It's a different workout so I don't see how I could be used to it already.

Well, have to go, hubby likes to have the computer in the mornings (he just told me, after three weeks of this) so I'll be on later. Bye!

[nickieluv]

I'm wired today. I don't know what it is. I had no desire to go back to bed after working out. And no, I didn't have a momentum product for breakfast, I had a bar. I was up until after midnight with that stuff, so I'm making sure to have them as my middle three supplements of the day from now on - after breakfast and before dinner. Hopefully I'll get some more sleep tonight. I think Nancy just posted that the half-life of the caffeine is 6 hours, and I am sensitive to it, and I had all three of the momentums yesterday after 3pm because that's when they were delivered and I wanted to start right away.

The energy is nice, don't get me wrong - but I'm afraid a crash is on the horizon. That's the part that isn't nice. But maybe I'm wrong and the crash won't come. After all, I'm going to pump myself full of more momentum in a few minutes. I will keep an eye on this, though. Nice as the jump start will be, if it keeps me from sleeping I'll need to cut back or even eliminate the products. The good news is that if I have to do that, my husband can use them - he's practically immune to caffeine after drinking tons of coffee all his life. I've got him on half-caf while he's on the diet but he refuses to go to decaf.

So anyway, I've been up since 5am and on the computer since after 6. Spent some money. Ssshhhhh. It's all returnable so I consider it window shopping in a way. I usually return 75-80% of the things I buy online because you just can't really tell what they look like until you see them in person. Plus it's on credit so it's not 'real' money. I know. It's a problem. I make it sound OK with the excuses I just wrote, but I don't stop to consider that it's a coping behavior. Of all the things I bought, I needed one thing - a pair of jeans. And I could get them cheaper at Walmart, but I spend real money at Walmart, so it seems more expensive. Pretty typical - I stop overeating for a couple of days, and I need to let 'it' out, whatever 'it' is, so I start overspending or undersleeping or some other binge-type behavior. I need to find out what 'it' is, I guess, and deal with it, instead of just shifting to another addiction/vice.

But hey, I'm on plan.

[Susie Q]

Good Morning, Nickie! I wish I had time to chat but I have to dress and get to the office Bummer! Anyway, I want to come back and comment on your shopping spree....man oh man, can I relate to retail therapy!!! I'm refusing to fall into it this year though - - esp with the economy the way it is. I've got so much stuff in my home that I don't use!! I've started thinning out though. I have an entire extra bedroom dedicated to 'garage sale' items! I can't wait until Spring to have a sale - - its sad that it will look like a multi family garage sale - lol

Anyway, I always thought of it as therapy till I realized it was no more therapy than my eating was . So several months ago I cut back to only what is needed......it hurts sometimes when I really 'want' something but I have to want it pretty bad to treat myself.

They say admitting it is step one so you're there!!!

Congrats for being on plan!!!

I have no time to post in my journal or anyone elses. Hopefully I won't be too tired to come back this evening.

TTFN!

Susie

P.S. I'm on plan too

[nickieluv]

Well, Susie, it's definitely therapy - just destructive and ineffective therapy!!

Speaking of therapy - I could totally go to counseling. I don't feel up to it right now, though. I have so much else to juggle that I know I couldn't fit in another appointment and have to find a sitter et cetera et cetera. The counselor (and my problems!) will still be there in a few months I'm sure. For now I'm focusing on eating well and exercising. I'm about to head upstairs to try on clothes. I'm hoping to empty out the closet of those things I hate to wear, you know? But I'm afraid that's all that will fit. It's just that after 2 days (aren't I amazing to have lasted 2 days?) I'm feeling the need to see something concrete. And getting rid of a pile of clothes will feel very good, even if it means I have less to wear for a while. I think I should like my clothes, even love them, not just put things on my body because they happen to fit.

I have so many clothes in sizes down to 10/12. I never quite got there, but a local store had a mega sale and I indulged - almost 18 months ago now is when I did that. Most of it I never wore or even tried on. I'm not digging those out just yet, but I am going to clean out the closet. And I'm hoping I can find just one pair of pants I can squeeze into that aren't maternity. I will wear those pants every day for weeks if I have to, just to pack away the maternity stuff. It's getting very disheartening to keep putting that stuff on.

OK, off I go. Happy day everybody!